[MacPerl] Re: Confused about learning it; suggest 2me libs, modules, requir.

[pvhp@forte.com (Peter Prymmer)]

ialvis@mindspring.com, mac-perl@iis.ee.ethz.ch
Subj:	[MacPerl] Confused about learning it; suggest 2me libs, modules, require etc...

"Joseph\"ALVIS\"Alexander Snow" <ialvis@mindspring.com> wrote recently:

!Seems every time I try n lern perl I spend days and get nothin...
!n e way, I guess I am slowly becoming familiar with %$!$#@...
!
!So I have it installed, eh?... but there is sooo much...overwhelming....
!can I get some suggestions fer practical modules, libs er whatever etc...
!to start my lern with please?
!...ps... My focus is quark/photoshop/illustrator  ... a la flow fer
!classified ads w images , n newsletters ...
!
!U never *really* know where yer goin till u git thar.

I would recommend starting small.  The 2nd edition of "Learning Perl" by
Randal Schwartz and Tom Christiansen is now available - do beware that
many "real world" examples from that book do have a UNIXy flavor though.
Another book that I highly recommend (which has an unfortunately offensive 
name) is "Perl 5 for Dummies" which has two distinct advantages: 
1) it treats the subject matter as though perl may be the first programming 
language you might ever have used (hence rather than saying "printf() works 
just like it does in C" you get explanations of what printf() does and its 
weird formats)
2) P5 4 Dummies is one of the few (perhaps only?) books on perl that has much 
to say about using perl on a Mac.  (Ed Peschko has a book in preparation that 
will likely mention MacPerl but it is not out yet.)

Just be careful that in "Perl 5 for Dummies" that the font used makes it 
impossible to distinguish backticks `` from foreticks ''.  Since backticks 
aren't extensively used in MacPerl scripting this may be a moot warning.

Peter Prymmer


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